


Light of Day

by wintersjackson



Series: Urban Magic RWBY [7]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-29
Updated: 2014-12-29
Packaged: 2018-03-04 06:04:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2954960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintersjackson/pseuds/wintersjackson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After nearing death at the hands of the terrifying 'terror of Grecia' Weiss is on the slow road to recovery-one made a lot easy by the presence of people she can rely on. Of course, trust, like love, has to go both ways. Some things are just a matter of time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Light of Day

Yang nudged the door open gingerly, ready to jump away at any sign of danger despite the other woman having crossed heedlessly a moment before. It wasn’t even the first time- since the Witch had contacted her she had visited a few times, but if anything it just made her feel her caution was justified.

This was a witch’s hut. If ‘Baba Yaga’ had taught her nothing else, it had taught her to be cautious around houses with duck feet. Even if this was actually a rather nice cottage on the border of the city, overlooking a canal, Yang’s caution insisted the comparison was still valid.

“Yaaaaaaang, you’re embarrassing me...” Ruby’s whine shocked the older sister back into motion and she quickly led them through the door, doing her best to look dignified as Gris smiled knowingly from her rest on the other side.

Ruby slipped by her while she was glaring, oohing and ahhing at the various mysterious objects and charms, and Yang resisted the urge to sweep her sister up before she touched anything dangerous. Her previous visits had been made alone, and nothing untoward had happened to her, but for reasons she was currently failing to remember she’d been convinced to bring her sister along despite the fact Ruby was currently sniffing from a bottle with what appeared to be a human skull floating in it.

“Yang, you realise this is one of the safest places in the city, right?” Gris offered as she got back up, leading the way to the guest bedroom again. “My mother wouldn’t have invited her if she didn’t think we could handle it.”

Yang grunted noncommittally, but signalled her sister to follow as they moved into the smaller room. Ruby signalled her complaint in return, but blurred to Yang’s heels nonetheless.

Weiss was sitting on the side of the bed when they pushed the curtain aside, dressed and hesitantly trying to nudge her shaking feet into some converses as a looming dark-skinned woman held her hand. Yang hadn’t even finished raising her eyebrows when the woman flickered to be replaced by a huge black Tom instead, and Weiss looked up sharply with a quickly hidden look of shock at the interruption.

Ruby raised a finger, staring herself, and seemed about to say something when Yang gently guided her finger down, nodding in agreement. “Yes, Ruby, we could see that too.” She pretended not to notice Weiss’s blush as she took the chair facing the bed, pointedly ignoring the judging look the cat had given her every time she’d come to visit so far.

It had been a shock when she’d first received the call, but she’d never considered not responding. Weiss was stuck up, had less street awareness than your average road sign, and had more money than patience by far, but the Heiress had slowly been growing more bearable- and had asked for Yang’s help. An attack, they had explained, while she had been doing something that necessitated evading her father. Yang had pointedly not drawn any conclusions from how Weiss had quickly glanced at the cat while saying that, especially now she knew she could appear human. Still, the attacker had done major harm to her in ways Yang barely even understood when it was explained. Gris insisted that without magical healing, Weiss would have died a hundred times over from the initial wounds alone- help that the Schnee doctors would have never allowed or even considered giving.

So, Weiss had now been missing for two full weeks while the Witches got her to a condition they were confident would not regress after being downgraded to mere human doctors. There had been no television campaign, no manhunt, but Yang’s data analyser housemate had insisted that all the signs were there of the Schnees quietly tearing their hair out in a search for their heiress.

So, they’d reached an agreement, and Ruby quietly played with Blake at the foot of the bed as the rest of them went over the final details. The Witches could not be involved in the “rescue”, or the wrath of the company would probably come down on the like a hammer. Yang on the other hand was close enough to human that if she stumbled into a hospital carrying Weiss-claiming to have rescued her from a gang of dark spirits after hearing noises in an abandoned building- she would receive no real scrutiny.

“And you’re sure the address is really abandoned?” Weiss asked for the third time. “If police swarm the place with steel nets and end up assaulting an unconnected family of squatters, I will not be pleased in the slightest.”

“The last owner burned alive in the front hall,” Yang explained tiredly. A jokester making comparisons was how she’d heard about it in the first place. “No spirit will go near the place who doesn’t deserve to be arrested, and Ruby will sweep it twice for humans before the police even get the address from me.”

Weiss grimaced, pressing her palm to her ruined eye, and Yang’s annoyance evaporated. She leant forward quickly, hands carefully held to help.  
“Are you alright? Do you need a break?”

Weiss waved her away distractedly, but didn’t take her hand away. When Gris stepped in again, carefully guiding her shaking hand down, blood was filling the scar as if it had been freshly cut and Weiss began to tremble again. The witch helped her lie flat, mumbling something unrepeatable as her hands brushed over the loaned outfit once again. When Weiss’s breath steadied Gris immediately rose, signing for them to follow as she strode away.  
“This’ll have to be the last poultice before we hand her over. Yang, come on, it’ll take half an hour to heat the cauldron by kettle, and Blake, you’ll be acting as our conduit for the healing again.”  
Ruby made a sad noise as her playmate quickly trotted out alongside her sister, and the curtain was quickly slid back across the door when she got up to follow. Pouting for a moment, her attention slowly slid to the girl dozing on the bed. She tip-toed up, hiding below the bedside until the girl’s face slowly came into view.

She was pretty, Ruby couldn’t help thinking, with clear skin (though less literally than her own) and a long, red scar dominating one side of her pretty face. Finally, the pillow was covered in a veil of long, white hair that seemed to glow in the gentle morning sunlight. The implication didn’t hit the Reaper immediately, and when the sleeping girl’s eyes fluttered Ruby couldn’t help but lean in curiously.

Meaning Weiss opened her eyes to stare directly into the sockets of a bare, pink-tinged skull.

She screamed, short and loud, and Ruby shot backwards with a shriek of her own. Weiss panted for a moment, splayed against the headboard, but the creature had rolled off the foot of the bed and out of sight. No-one in the main room appeared to have heard, the faint sound of bickering filtering in, and Weiss’s fear started to wane as whatever it was failed to reappear. Slowly, struggling a little to push clear of the heavy covers in her current condition, she crawled over the covers to peer over the footboard.

A small shape was curled up under a big red cloak and, oddly, a large tinted motorcycle helmet. Yang had carried two in with her, but she was fairly certain the girl Yang had brought-Ruby, she suddenly remembered- had not been wearing it.

“Are you alright?” Weiss asked carefully, uncertain if it was fear or tears that made the pile shiver. “I’m sorry if I scared you. You just gave me a shock, is all. Would you sit up? I promise I’m not mad!”

Slowly, hesitantly, Ruby dragged herself upright, though the cape was wrapped around her like a blanket and the helmet hid her face entirely. She stayed there, swaying quietly. Weiss dimly noticed her hands, little fingers the only thing peeping out from the material. The very edge of the rectangle of sunlight caught two fingers on her right hand, and there all the light hit were small, pink bones, trembling slightly. Weiss’s heart twinged and she carefully laid out on the spread, bringing her head a little closer to the girl’s.

“Your name’s Ruby, right?” Weiss asked politely, and the helmet twitched as the girl looked up, wavering a moment before wobbling in a nod. “That’s a very nice cloak you have there, Ruby. I bet it’s warm.”

“Cape,” came a tiny mumble, so small Weiss almost missed it. “Monsters wear cloaks to hide. Heroes wear capes.” Weiss nodded as if it was the most logical thing and the cloak loosened slightly, those cautious hands shifting their hold as the shaking slowly stopped.

“Did your sister get it for you, Ruby? She’s very...nice?” The mound froze again for a moment, but just when Weiss thought she’d lost her Ruby shuffled, peering over her shoulder at the curtain covering the way into the main room. There were the sounds of sloshing, and chanting, and what may have been a snide comment. Ruby turned back, leaning in and putting a hand near the helmet in a stage whisper. Weiss leant in despite herself, amused.

“She worries a lot,” Ruby whispered loudly. “And she has to work all the time, so she’s always tired when I see her and is always asleep when she’s at home. The week I got this one, because my old one had holes, we had really little plates at dinner and she kept saying she wasn’t hungry and making me finish hers.”

Weiss raised her eyebrows slowly, not quite sure what she was hearing. She knew her sometimes-friend had cut it a bit fine settling her sister, but that sounded like actual poverty. Why hadn’t Yang just said? It wasn’t like she didn’t have money to spare, she’d proved that the very night they’d met.

“Well, you’re sister’s going to be a big hero when she brings me back,” Weiss said slowly. “Maybe she can ask for some money. I’m sure my family won’t mind.”

Ruby perked up, the previous sadness forgotten. “Oh, Yang says we’re alright for money! I asked about it but she’s really smart with it.” She sagged a little, cloak settling again as she finally let go of the corners. “She says she has to work all the time or she’ll be fired, though. Could you get her job to give her more time to spend at home with me instead? I watch a lot of TV but its better with her there...”

Weiss fought the urge to bury her face in a hand, feeling her new scar twinge painfully as she griped mentally to herself about fire-breathing blonds and their martyr complexes. That vented, she gave the younger girl a wide smile, pointing at the shiny helmet. “Do you want to take that off and let me see your pretty face? I promise I won’t be rude again.”

At once Ruby went silent again and Weiss could fear her mentally retreating.  
“I look ugly,” she moaned quietly, clasping both hands on the mirrored surface as if afraid Weiss would pull it away herself. “If I take it off around people they get scared or angry, like you did.”

Weiss twitched guiltily, but touched a finger gingerly against the scar covering her own visage. “You’ll be prettier than me? I was just...surprised. I promise you weren’t ugly. If I am lying, may I be...chopped up and made into soup!”

That made Ruby giggle, and after a pause she slowly slipped it off, as if afraid Weiss would change her mind. Weiss struggled to keep her face neutral as she met Ruby’s cautious eyes. She’d been expecting a child, a few years younger than her for sure, but the face she was looking at belonged to a girl her age at least.  
“How...old are you, Ruby?” She asked carefully. The girl blinked, lips tugging upwards in a smile as Weiss failed to recoil in fear and revulsion.

“Seventeen. Why, how old are you?”

~

When the cat, the elemental and the hedge witch came back into the little bedroom jar of poultice ready and glowing faintly, two of them were a little surprised to find Ruby flitting around in and out of the sunlight with concern as Weiss fumed silently into a pillow.

~

Everything was a bit of a blur once they left the cottage, the heavily fortified wards and guards fading away as they crossed the threshold. There were many bright lights and loud noises and general shouting as Yang stumbled into the hospital, and Weiss felt a sharp pain in her brow before everything faded back to dark.

When she woke up and was confirmed to be stable but weak, what followed felt like hour after hour of paperwork and committee. Only when the last lawyer had packed his briefcase and departed did her father appear, saying a few token words and soon turning to leave.  
“What about the girl who rescued me?” Weiss asked sharply, and he turned back momentarily with a guarded expression.  
“A token reward as a guarantee of her silence. Three digits.”  
Weiss immediately shook her head sharply enough to make her dizzy.  
“No. If she went to the tabloids and they ran the story the company could lose millions-and worse than that, respect.” After a tense moment, he gave a miniscule nod.  
“Six digits.”  
In another time, she would have been proud of the way the response made his brow raise the slightest touch.  
“Four.”  
“Low five.”  
“Deal.”  
Both gave a minute nod of agreement, and Weiss quickly spoke up before he finished turning away again.  
“And I’ll be seeing her at least once a week until further notice. Both to allay suspicions and to minimize any chances of her taking the money and running.”  
She sagged down into the sterilised sheets when he really did leave the room, all the keeping up appearances somehow combining to leave her exhausted. She stretched, dragging her hands over the covers so one hung down between the bed and the wall.  
A tired smile lit up her face as she felt a warm, furred tail wind against her fingers and felt the vibration of a deep purr.  
~  
Far off, at the edge of the city’s reaches, a Fae that towered above the humans that walked below him narrowed his eyes behind his helm. He’d seen the omen all others had missed, if only for a moment. It had been there, the scent almost forgotten. His greatest of quarries. His only Bride.


End file.
